Shruti Mokashi and Sharachchandra Lele

Centre for Environment and Development ATREE | October 2021

In India, the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFDs) have been inhabiting and using forests for generations. During the consolidation of State forests in the colonial period and in independent India, their forest rights on ancestral lands were not adequately recognized. To undo this historical injustice, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (also known as Forest Rights Act or FRA), was enacted in 2006. The FRA mainly recognizes two types of rights: 1) Individual Forest Rights1 and 2) Community forest rights. The focus of this study is on community forest rights.